EYFS
Welcome to St Gilbert’s Early Years page
Our Early Years Foundation Stage includes our Nursery and Reception classes. Our EYFS is led by a team of experienced and passionate teachers, nursery nurses and teaching assistants. Our staff promote a positive learning environment where children feel valued, heard and safe.
Our Early Years Vision
At St Gilbert's Primary School, we aim for all Early Years pupils to be happy, confident, and eager learners. We provide a safe, stimulating environment, both indoors and outdoors, that nurtures each child’s interests and needs.
We believe in learning through play, where activities are fun, engaging, and challenging. Adults interact with children to extend their learning, acting as role models throughout. Our curriculum blends adult-led and child-initiated activities for a balanced approach.
At St Gilbert's Primary School, we create enriching indoor and outdoor environments to support children's development.
Key focus areas:
Literacy: We foster a love of reading and communication across all spaces.
Physical Development: Activities both indoors and outdoors help build coordination and strength.
Imagination and Curiosity: Children explore, create, and problem-solve through play.
Independence and Risk-Taking: Children are encouraged to make choices and manage risks.
At St Gilbert’s, we foster a love of reading from the start, through library loans, daily stories, poetry recitals and phonically matched books. We believe strong relationships with children and families are vital to developing confidence and independence. Partnering with parents ensures effective learning and supports children's growth both at school and at home.
We are committed to giving every child the best start, equipping them with the skills for well-being and future success.
Our Intent
We believe every child is unique, continuously learning, and capable of becoming resilient, confident, and self-assured. We foster positive relationships to support each child in becoming strong and independent, with a strong partnership between EYFS staff and parents. Our rich, enabling environment offers experiences tailored to each child's individual needs, ensuring learning is progressive and based on what they already know. Recognizing that children develop at different rates and in unique ways, we use Development Matters alongside a self-created curriculum to guide teaching.
Our Foundation Stage intent is to:
Our Curriculum
We are proud of our curriculum and tailor this to our individual cohorts needs and experiences each year.
We use the Early Years Statutory Framework alongside Development Matters to support our curriculum which is split into 7 prime and specific areas.
The prime areas:
Communication and Language – Listening, Attention and Understanding, Speaking
Physical Development – Gross Motor Skills, Fine Motor Skills
Personal, Social and Emotional Development – Self Regulation, Managing Self, Building Relationships
The specific areas:
Literacy – Comprehension, Word Reading and Writing
Mathematics – Number, Numerical Patterns
Understanding the World – Past and Present, People, Culture and Communities, The Natural World
Expressive Arts and Design –Creating with Materials and Being Imaginative and Expressive
The prime areas are integral to learning and support development throughout each of the other areas.
Learning through Play
We fully believe that children learn best through play. Playing with others allows children to develop communication skills, imagination and creativity as well as supporting problem solving skills and critical thinking. We provide opportunities for the children to learn through a wide range of different experiences and play opportunities. We understand that each child is unique and we enjoy getting to know each child, tailoring opportunities to help them learn through their interests. The children take part in both child-led and adult-led activities and children are given lots of opportunity each day to direct their own play.
The Outdoor Area
We were very lucky to work with Pentagon Play to re-develop our outdoor space during summer 2021. The children now have access to a wide range of facilities include bikes and trikes, balance beams, an obstacle course, a climbing frame, role-play opportunities, sand and water and more! Our outdoor environment is an integral part of our day. We go outside all year round to ensure that children are able to experience the joy of being outdoors no matter the weather.
Parent Partnership
We recognise the vital role that parents and carers play in their children’s education which is why we work in close partnership with them. Parent evenings take place in the Autumn and Spring terms and a full report is given at the end of the year. We also hold Pray, Stay and Play sessions regularly throughout the year. We want parents and carers to feel that they can speak to us about their child at any time and encourage regular communication.
Home support
Here are some useful website and suggestions for things to support you at home:
Top marks - This website has activities and games in all subjects, but is particularly useful for Maths.
Super Simple Songs - Nursery rhymes
Learn English Kids- Stories, songs and games with a focus on language development.
Phonics Play -Games and activities to help support phonics. In Early Years we focus on Phase 1 and the set 1 Read, Write, Inc. sounds (Nursery) and set 1 and 2 Read, Write, Inc. sounds (Reception).
BBC iPlayer – NumberBlocks
Wellbeing and Mental Health support for parents
Oxford Owl - e-books
We are also really lucky to live in Greater Manchester. There are lots of museums, libraries and parks that you can take your child to. Here are some ideas for free things to do:
The Science and Industry Museum
The Lowry
The Whitworth Art Gallery
Ordsall Hall
The Imperial War Museum
Winton Park
The Bridgewater Canal
Clifton Country Park